Deprived of a Fighting Chance.

A teacher combats harassment from correctional officers and jumbles of red tape from a succession of managers while trying to deliver correspondence courses to adults in a maximum security detention centre.

Ghi Dean won a silver medal for excellence in writing for Deprived of a Fighting Chance.

By Eduardo Aduna for Readers’ Favorite  (5 stars)

Nelson Mandela once said that a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones. Ghi Dean's novel shows us how one of the "advanced" countries in the world deals with its prisoners -and it's not a pretty sight. Rehabilitation clashes with punishment and inmates are given intermittent rays of hope while being stuck in an endless cycle of hopelessness and desolation. Ghi Dean's experiences were written with such emotional frankness that I found myself commiserating with her frustrations and celebrating with her whenever she encounters tiny triumphs.

Ghi Dean (whose pen name is Chris Williams) has three married children and nine grandsons. She is a retired high school teacher with many years' experience teaching French and Spanish at various levels. The most rewarding experience of her career was when she became Education Coordinator in a maximum security detention centre in Ontario. Her hobbies are writing, cartooning, painting water colours of her grandsons, sewing and knitting. She has published a cartoon book about high school teaching called 'No Smart Answers,' has written and illustrated materials for the French and Spanish classrooms and written 'Deprived of a Fighting Chance,' based on her experience at the detention centre.